Quote Originally Posted by Rapidnick
This chestnut again!!! I have asked in several previous posts for any member to give me an example where ANYONE had been jailed for ANY LENGTH OF TIME let alone five years for JUST POSSESSING an air rifle of over 12 ft lb. The answer is NO ONE HAS!!! That does not mean to say that the 12 ft lb limit is to be flouted-just that we shouldn't be paranoid about it!
The answer to the original question is the same as for speed limits or any other kind of legal limit-drinking, smoking, driving etc: they are purely arbitrary.
Not sure how many active regular posters there are on this forum, probably not even 1,000 out of the 9,000 registered members at a guess. I'm also not sure how many people looked at your thread - less than 500 at another guess. Out of those just because no one (that was prepared to reply) knew of anyone that had been sent down for any length of time, isn't proof that not one of the 2,000,000 airgun owners in the country has fallen foul of the 12fpe limit with any one of the 6,000,000+ airguns in the country. Your answer of 'NO ONE HAS' makes some sweeping assumptions and may or may not be true.

What is true however is that there are sufficient laws in this country to deter airgun misuse without having to resort to bans or licensing, but they are sadly not common knowledge. Who in their right mind would go waving an airgun around if they knew they could face upto 14 years in prison.

You can call it paranoia if you like, I call it having a responsible attitude on a public forum and helping to make all those lurking guests aware of the seriousness of airgun misuse and the possible sentences they face.

All the best
Brian